


Growing Together

by TheShortestManOnEarth



Series: Jam Bud Week 2020 [4]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alone/Together Prompt, Connie's thoughts about Together Forever, Episode: s06e14 Growing Pains, Jam Bud Week 2020, Light Connverse, Set right before Growing Pains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23906143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShortestManOnEarth/pseuds/TheShortestManOnEarth
Summary: Connie was a logical person. She knew more about words than most librarians. But she couldn't figure out just how to describe her best friend. Was "Best Friend" right? All she knew was that Steven felt alone and loneliness was something Connie was all too familiar with.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran & Steven Universe, Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Series: Jam Bud Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673545
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27
Collections: Steven Universe Completed Recommended Reads





	Growing Together

**Author's Note:**

> Hey All,
> 
> Sorry for the delays in posting my updates to Jam Bud Week and my other fics. I've been pretty swamped with my college classes. This past week especially was pretty heavy between a huge 22 page project for my typography class and an online exam. I appreciate your patience and I promise I will finish the works I have up, it's a just matter of when I get free time.
> 
> I also do plan to participate in Jam Bud Week 2 when I finish the prompts for the first one. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this fic. Also, if any of you are at all interested in being my beta reader, I currently proof my own work right now. Or if you'd like to collaborate on some longer projects, I have a few planned for SU that I would love to collaborate on (it would also help with posting on a regular schedule when I have too much work going on). 
> 
> I also got the idea after writing this to maybe do a work that takes SUF but if Connie was actually there as much as I (and many others) wanted her to be. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Enjoy!

There were a few truths that Connie knew beyond a shadow of a doubt were irrefutable. The first, naturally, was that hard work was essential to accomplishing anything worthwhile. Her mother had instilled in her an incredible amount of discipline and if Connie hoped to make anything of her life, she knew that she would have to focus hard on it. Distractions weren’t even a consideration at this point in her life. She couldn’t afford it. Getting into college was one reason for this, but another more dire motivation was so she wouldn’t get sidetracked and possibly sustain injury on a gem mission. Nothing could have prepared her for the stark contrast of those pillars of rationale. 

Which brought the second truth: that life was unpredictable. Connie had tried to plan her life out from the beginning, and she was sure that whatever deities existed out there in the galaxy were laughing at her efforts. No matter how many binders she had or color-coded folders, they couldn’t organize the trials and tribulations she encountered while on gem missions. If the Diamonds, who were probably the closest thing to immortal beings that Connie had seen with her own eyes, couldn’t handle managing other immortal beings, how on Earth could a human girl fold her life into neat files? She never expected Amethyst to be the one to teach her the lesson to cut loose and think while on the go. It certainly curtailed some future anxieties of waiting on the unknown results of her cram school exams. 

Connie leaned back in her chair, letting loose a long sigh. There wasn’t any chance of getting through another hour of work at this point. She’d been sitting and rereading the same page a couple times over. The last read through had been backwards, a first for her. The logical side of her mind attributed it to the fact that she’d recently read some manga Steven had lent her. Reading right to left and then abruptly changing back again could confuse anyone who adjusted to the same pattern for a while. 

Fingers ran through her hair, massaging her temples and then sliding down to slap onto her open book. She looked around, hoping her parents hadn’t heard the noise. Hearing the sound through her door and down the hall seemed patently ridiculous in retrospect of her brief moment of alarm. But she was also working in a quiet room with her mind doing the mental equivalent of walking around in circles banging pots and pans to an undiscernible rhythm. 

Truth number three was that everything changed. When Connie was younger, she’d had a pair of overalls that she loved. She’d worn it many times when she hung out with Steven. Many of her memories with him seemed to be imprinted on the fabric as much as the scuffs and stains from their adventures. When puberty finally reared its curvy head, her hips refused to fit into the overalls, and her now longer muscular legs threatened to tear them at the seams. Her eyes flicked to her closet where the overalls still hung. She couldn’t bring herself to give them away. 

As a child, Connie had been excited to grow up. Seeing the amazing work her mother did at the hospital drove the younger Maheswaran to imagine what it would be like when she could save people too. All her books made it look so easy. Protagonists finding the secret code, spell, or weapon to save the day. Her mother knew her way around medical tools too. Books became a way for Connie to prepare for the adulthood she thought was inevitable. 

Steven burst that bubble literally when he trapped her under the Ocean. Watching her best friend practically teach immortal aliens from across the galaxy lessons he had no business knowing at fourteen and then again now at almost seventeen. Steven had to be an adult long before he was ready. So, he became ready. Connie fell in with him, never quite realizing just how many times they almost didn’t make it to their true adulthood. Steven wouldn’t have known the difference. At least, not truly. He only had Greg and the gems as a reference for how to measure his progress. But Connie knew. 

In White’s Head she had to carry him to his other half. She had to hold him up as his skin grew colder and paler. His fingers trembled and his lips mumbled pleas. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how small they both were in comparison to the conflicts they were facing. She’d almost buckled under Steven’s weight as she half carried; half dragged him to the safety of his pink half. 

When White had said Steven was “Acting like a child.” He responded that he was a child. Until then, he hadn’t been willing to admit it. Still, Connie wondered just how old Steven thought he was. She’d been there for his first facial hair. More had slowly grown in over the last few years, but he still retained a rounded youthful face. 

Once upon a time she’d worried he wouldn’t grow old with her. A crease formed on her brow as she frowned. She tapped her pen absently against her book. At the time it was because she imagined spending her life with her best friend, whatever that entailed. If she were honest, she would have admitted it was because she had a crush on him since he saved her in his bubble. Though a crush wasn’t quite the word for what she felt now. 

Truth number four: Words will constantly change meaning. Spending an inordinate amount of time in the library and reading everything from the fantasy section to the non-fiction section and some basic medical books her mother had in the house, meant Connie had a vocabulary that far exceeded the average for her age. She knew more words than she could apply to sentences on a regular basis. Trying on new words in sentences was the pastime she opted for over playing dress up or playing with toys. Dr. Maheswaran was strict about what toys Connie could play with, so the girl played with words. 

When she first met Steven, before they fought the gem monster or he got her out of the bubble, the word she would have used was “Irresponsible.” Steven tried many solutions to break the bubble that could have gotten them both killed. 

Later the word she used was “Incredible!” He’d figured out what the monster wanted and distracted it while he told her to run. He protected her while risking his own life. For a stranger he’d only seen once at the Boardwalk parade, he had risked his life and given Connie a new meaning to the word “Friend.” 

Over time Connie learned that not everyone was as selfless as Steven. He frequently set aside his own feelings to solve problems for the gems or to heal the corrupted ones. Despite his obligations he never passed on a chance to spend time with Connie. To her, that was the definition of the word “selfless.” She readily adjusted to thinking of Steven as her best friend and someone she could share her innermost passions with freely. As kids that seemed to fit. 

They weren’t kids anymore. Slowly the words “best friends” stopped meaning two kids who liked to hang out and eat fry bits and watch satirical TV shows together. Now it meant two people who had seen the absolute worst parts of the universe and somehow came back alive. Connie looked out her window. Steven had appeared outside recently and within fifteen minutes broken any barrier that remained to define the two of them as just two platonic best friends. 

But Connie wasn’t sure if Steven knew the words he was saying. He knew what it meant, but at the same time, he didn’t know what he was asking her to do at fifteen. She would be lying, though, if she had said she hadn’t thought of him as more than just “best friend.” Crush was right out. He was her partner in everything from going to get pizza to wondering what she would do if he’d bled to death in the pale white abyss that was White’s Head. He could have died there. The gems wouldn’t have known because they may not have woken up. Never knowing that Steven, their friend, their family, their charge, and the light of their world, had been killed by someone who claimed to love his mother. A few minutes more and Steven could have been erased. More than the gems who wanted to run her through, kidnap her, or call her dehumanizing words like “pet” Connie dreaded the idea of Steven vanishing from existence. 

Then she would be alone. She’d been alone before she met him. Connie had practically screamed at him on their first day meeting that she thought she was going to die alone at the bottom of the Ocean without anyone except for her parents to notice. Steven had noticed though. He had for a long time. _When did I?_ Connie’s thoughts blurted a hole through her reverie. But her thoughts marched onwards. 

When he gave himself up to Homeworld she realized with a sickening bitter pang that she could very well be alone. Steven was her battle partner, her Jam Bud, but he had to save the universe. It was the best and worst part of him. The moments she felt the most alone were narrowed to the parts of their childhood where he insisted he was his mother and had to take responsibility for her actions. That’s when Steven felt like he was slipping away, even before White tried to enact that path permanently. 

Truth Number Five: Loss happens, whether you want it to or not. 

Five-year-old Connie stood with tears in her eyes as her mother explained that if she wanted a pet, like a goldfish, to last, she had to be responsible. A fish, even as small a creature as it was, was still a life. All lives, Dr. Maheswaran firmly said, were of equal value. As a doctor, Dr. Maheswaran had to believe that to her core. Nothing could tear her from her responsibility to ensuring all her patients were well cared for. 

Younger Connie had sniffed and stretched out her hands for the bowl carrying the deceased fish. “But why? Why did she have to go? I miss her.” She didn’t have many friends on account of her family moving around from place to place. The only constants were her parents and for a few weeks, this goldfish. 

Dr. Maheswaran kneeled down, “Everything has its time, Connie. Even I can’t save every single patient that comes through the hospital. It’s just part of life.” Connie shook her head fervently as if it could clear away the truth of it all. But time would spin a different revelation for the small child who had now grown into a teenager. 

They’d buried the goldfish in a park since their temporary home didn’t have a proper backyard. After years of uncertain moving and small losses like the goldfish it felt strange to instill a word as permanent as “family” or “love” to anything other than her parents. Even if she didn’t have a close friend or someone to confide in, at least she didn’t have to worry about losing them. 

Connie didn’t realize how close she’d been to losing Steven until now. The number of times they’d come across gems who wanted to kill him because they thought he was his mother were still being uncovered to an extent. She stood up and opened her window, leaning against the windowsill. 

Steven had been so earnest in his efforts to ask her to stay with him. To live as Stevonnie. Was half of a whole a better way to think about what they were to each other? _No_ , Connie insisted. She was her own person. Maybe she felt alone before, but she didn’t anymore. She had her parents, she had friends from cram school, and all the people she’d met through Steven. He was the real reason she didn’t feel alone. But she didn’t need him to be fused with her all the time to feel together. She pursed her lips and then chewed her lip. 

Another sigh escaped her as she crossed her arms and leaned on them. Steven had expressed something that she herself had thought about a few times. It wouldn’t be fair of her to let him think that she didn’t feel the same to an extent. “Not now,” had seemed like a good answer. It was logical, practical, and not at all filled with the words she truly felt for him. 

Steven had seemed unmoored when they’d spoken after his proposal. He hadn’t talked to her since then and she genuinely wondered if she should have tried harder to figure out what was going on. She’d never hesitated to back him up before. Things were different between them. Whatever their relationship had been, it was forever changed because they were older or so she thought. 

Steven hadn’t just gotten older. He’d become withdrawn. There weren’t any battles to fight and he still sought them out in a way by trying to help at Little Homeschool. That was good for him at least. But she knew that wasn’t enough. He’d lost the one thing he’d spent his entire life working for: being a Crystal Gem. 

Connie had spent enough time alone to know that it wasn’t something she wished on anyone. She pushed off the window and swiped her phone off her desk as she sat down again. Words were her specialty. But she hardly knew how to convey precious words to the one person she’d shared a lifetime of experiences with and never felt more together while alone with him than anyone else. It wasn’t something they made when fused. It had to exist from without. 

Truth number six: _Love takes work and love takes time._ Those were the words Garnet had spoken to Jamie when he’d professed his love to her. Or what he thought was love. He’d only just met Garnet and thought she was beautiful. That wasn’t love. Connie and Steven hadn’t known that then. What Steven felt or expressed, though it may not have been the right time, was love. It was flawed and tangled with other emotions she couldn’t place, but it was love, nonetheless. 

Connie never doubted how much he cared. Even when he abandoned her for Homeworld he did it so she wouldn’t have to go. So that no one had to go. Except for him. Steven would have been alone there without Lars. She’d had plenty of time with Steven and there were still parts of him she found she still didn’t know anything about. But he was still Steven. 

Call him a Friend, a Best friend, or another word, he was close enough that she had photos of him like she did her family in her room and on her phone, and partner. Those were all words for him. But never in her whole life would she want Steven to feel like he was alone with her. 

There were many ways to say different words. Different ways to explain what truth was. Truth was honesty. Truth was about trust. Truth was about sticking to your principles. Truth was about knowing when to act and when to wait. When Garnet spoke of love, it came from thousands of years of talking, trusting, discussing principles, and waiting for the right moments to act. Granted, Garnet had Future Vision on her side, but that wasn’t why she had remained a fusion couple for thousands of years. 

When Connie’s parents said they loved each other, which wasn’t as frequent or openly spoken in plain words as some other parents or couples, it was apparent in both words and actions. Doug would cook when Priyanka was too tired and vice versa. No words were needed. A mirror could be held to Connie and Steven in that regard. Steven didn’t need to ask her to help or step in. He wouldn’t at first. She had to fight to get him to accept her help. He always seemed to be the most open to others, yet the most isolated. 

Phone in hand, Connie scrolled to where she saw Steven’s picture in her contacts. Springing into action had never been natural to Connie. But she found that when Steven needed her, whether or not he asked for it, there was ample strength to be found. 

She didn’t know what word fit. But she did know that since the days she’d been crushing on her best friend that she had found a final truth: Steven was the embodiment of an open heart that he strove to share with the universe. She wanted to be a part of that universe. His universe. He was love. Or more importantly he was what love was for her. And no matter how many thesauruses she pulled from the shelves she couldn’t find a better word to describe the ways she’d looked at him when he wasn’t paying attention. Or the warmth she felt when she saw the picnic spread he’d made for her. 

The final truth stood to testify before Connie’s mental court of logic and reason that if making Steven feel together again, as himself, the way she had so many times before, meant that she loved him, well, then she had better show it. She clicked on his contact and the phone’s dial tone buzzed its tune. 

“Steven, are you there?” 

_I’m here_ , Connie thought. _You’re never alone._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
